Out Of The Blue (Stepping Out) The break-up of a rock ’n’ roll band can be as heart-wrenching an experience as the end of a marriage, leaving the participants confused, paranoid, and deeply scarred. Especially when the people in question began their relationship young, like high school sweethearts—or, as in the case of the Runaways, teenage reprobates. Ask Lita Ford, a scant 16, still playing hooky with the bad boys, when Kim Fowley invited her to be the guitarist of his R&R, all-girl pop dream, and a veteran of 21 when the bot-

you want me to fake it?

tom fell out and she returned to the rigors of the real world.

“I went nuts for a year,” Lita recalls at Polygram’s Manhattan offices on the eve of the release of her first solo LP, Out For

Blood. “I got caught in all kinds of things. Drugs. I did blow, smack; people used to knock on my door saying ‘eat this’ or ‘snort that.’ I drank like a fucking fish. I wasn’t heavily into it ’til after the Runaways brokeup, but I found myself without anything to do. I wasn’t working and had plenty of time to get fucked up.”

Fortunately, Lita realized why they call it dope before it was too late, gave her boyfriend the boot, and left the wilds of Hollywood to stay with her parents in Long Beach and clean herself up. “I lived in their back house, not knowing what I was going to do with myself, no idea.” All she knew for certain was that she still wanted to play rock ’n’ roll guitar. At first she attempted to form a band with Runaway drummer Sandy West, but “it just didn’t work. I thought to myself ‘I’m going to start a new band and might as well start with a new drummer.’ ” Her problem was hardly a first. With the Runaways, Lita had neither sung nor written more than three songs, yet what she wanted most was to front her own band. She got a job as a cosmetician, “putting make-up on people. I hated it but I had to do something for money while getting the band together.” Lita took voice lessons and went back to the music that initially inspired her to make music. “Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Beck, Hendrix,” she reels off, including more recent heroes, “Def Leppard, Judas Priest. I don’t listen to much current music.” Of course there was always more than a touch of the metal in the Queens Of Noise, albeit anchored by Joan Jett’s love for glitter pop. This time Lita wanted it heavy, heavy, heavier.

Enter veteran bass player Neil Merryweather, a man already with a reputation in the industry through session work including the likes of Rick James, Steve Miller,

, and Billy Joel. The Runaways themselves j covered a couple of his songs, enhancing |s his Jack of all trades work: writing/produc11 ing/performing. He produced Out For l2 Blood as well as playing bass and being (at least initially) the Lita Ford Band’s manager. When drummer Dusty Watson (once with surfers Jon & the Nightriders) was included, they closed ranks as a trio and got to work rehearsing and making demos for the album.

Faking It (Intermission)

Are you from L.A.?

“I’m English. I was born in London and I’m a British citizen, to work here I have a Green Card. I’m not American, I don’t want to be American.”

You sound rather American.

“I left when I was six. But I have an English family, my relatives are all English.

I mean, just because I don’t have an accent doesn’t mean I can’t fake it.”

Go ahead then.

“You want me to fake it?” Her voice becomes clipped, taking on the formality and over-pronunciation of a South Londoner. “Well, what do you want me to say! I mean come on.”

She reverts to her normal drawl. “No, I can’t fake it, I have to be drunk. No, I can fake it good, sometimes I go to these British clubs in L. A. and meet all these English guys and I fake it. All they know is I’m English— right? And I get away with it.”

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Into The Black (The Rock Machine Must Roll)

The various excesses have rolled off Lita. At 24 she looks callously cool, attractive, hard as rock. Her shocking blonde hair-is tousled into a thinner version of Debbie Harry’s on the cover of The Hunter, her lean body slithers in the chair—bouncing in all the right places, fhe quasi-punk bondage and zippers are a rock dream come on: comical and sexy. Lita’s attitude veers from the rough gal out for a good time simplicity to a contrasting Glitter-sweet English Rose. Wendy O’Williams meets Sheena Easton. “I get bored with just one man,” she smiles, “and I don’t like kids. They bother me and I can’t see myself ever liking them.” She picks at her turkey sandwich before adding, “I’ve never thought of it before, but if I ever did want a child, I probably still wouldn’t get married.”

It’s a touch of personality that adds credence to her current Metal Goddess persona. Lita pushes her hand into a jacket pocket and pulls out two Polaroid snapshots, taken at a photo session she’s just come back from. I give them the twice-over, and then another glance. In the middle of a floor bellowing in smoke, Lita looks like a fetish metaller’s day-dream delight, in leather and tights and what must be some kind of girdle, since her natural attributes are nowhere near as prominent in the flesh. “You like ’em, eh?” Lita inquires, quite pleased we’ve found something to agree upon, “you should see the album cover.” We do, moments before it’s sent to the printers. In a spider web, Lita glares—all under dressed and tautly violent—as though she’s about to eat her lover. No, not the music-isn’t-the-only-thing-that-sucks bad pun—she’s supposed to be a black widow. “We’re taking the set along with us on the U.S.A. tour,” says she. An original piece of HM qpnsense.

Which makes a bit more sense out of the

set-up. If the little boys don’t dig the razzle fizzle HM by numbers her band grinds out, they’ll come for the good dirty fun. Oh yeah, this is business. “Alan Kovac, our manager, got Miller Beer to back us. They’ll be making tee-shirts, buttons, posters, all that shit.’ Miller usually won’t do that with a new band.” Lita Ford doesn’t have that much to do with music nowadays, she’s just watching the American rock ’n’ roll machine in action: invest your money and take your chances. I’ve hardly mentioned Out For Blood because that is the least important aspect; Lita thinks it’s great, I’m thoroughly indifferent. What matters here is, will it sell? I believe it will. But I wonder who’ll figure what the cost of faking it really is? ^